


Defenseless

by sapphireswimming



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Angst, Gen, Gen Work, Ghost Hunting, Hurt Danny Fenton, Jack and Maddie Fenton are legit paranormal scientists, Team Phantom (Danny Phantom), Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-16
Updated: 2011-04-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:27:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22038526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphireswimming/pseuds/sapphireswimming
Summary: Team Phantom thought this new ghost was going to be just like all the others. If only they could have realized just how wrong they were...
Kudos: 20





	1. Danny

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6909483/1/Defenseless
> 
> Defenseless was adopted by StarlightWhovian: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10758377/1/Defenseless-Chapter-7-Finale

Phantom groaned with the effort of holding the shield. It was flickering. But he had to keep it up for a little while longer, just a couple more minutes, a few more seconds. He had to.

Sweat splashed into his eye, stinging it, but he didn't dare bring his hand down to wipe it away. He needed all his strength directed at his defence now. He was slipping with both hands up, there was no way he could hold firm with only one.

He had to give them time to get out of here. He had to make sure they were safe.

He fell back a few feet, barely catching the shield again. He wished he was standing on solid ground so he could firmly plant his feet, but he had to hold the ghost off from the air. He had to keep him as far away as possible.

The shield disappeared until, with a cry, Danny was able to pull himself together for another stand.

This was getting too hard. He needed them to have gotten away already. He couldn't hold it much longer. He was too drained.

This fight had gone on too long.

He had never expected any of this—any of it.

He didn't even know this ghost, but it seemed to know him. It came at him like it had a personal score to settle. And it knew his weak points.

Both of them.

They were the reason he was on the defensive now. He was protecting them now. He prayed they were ok. If he was throwing everything he had at his enemy like he wanted, it would give the thing an open invitation to attack them. He wouldn't be quick enough to block it.

He hadn't thought that this fight would be any different for them. He couldn't have known that this ghost would specifically target friends, and not just to use as bait, but to actually hurt them merely for the sake of doing it.

He had no clue how it had happened, but one minute Team Phantom was ready for action, thermos and weapons at the ready, and the next, Tucker's still body lay smoking on the ground with hardly any pulse. Sam rushed to his side with a cry.

The ghost hit him as he sped towards his best friend. That was when he had changed plans, creating a shield around them and yelling at Sam to get Tucker to safety.

She knew exactly what to do, but without Danny to help her, Tucker's unresponsive body was heavy and it was slow going.

As he took another blast to his shield, he knew he couldn't hold onto the protective dome for much longer. This opponent was far too strong.

He risked a glance down at the street. Sam and Tucker were nowhere to be seen, so he could only hope they had gotten far enough away to be safe.

He couldn't give them any more time, anyway. His chest was burning and he was losing energy with every punch and attack this ghost threw against his shield. It was time to let it drop.

It was time to take him on.


	2. Sam

She had dragged Tucker as far as she could, but stopped here for a moment, trying to catch her breath.

Sure, she was in the best physical shape of the three of them, but there were limits even to her endurance. She couldn't pick Tucker up or sling him over her shoulder. She simply wasn't that strong.

Danny would have been able to get him halfway across the city in minutes with his ghostly powers. But he had to keep the shield up and keep the ghost at bay. She was the one who had to get Tucker to safety.

And it was hard.

Tucker was heavy—darn the meat-eater. She always knew it was bad for you…

She was breathing hard as she just managed to turn a couple corners and get behind a dumpster in a nearby alley. She couldn't carry Tucker any further. Hopefully, it was far enough out of the way that that ghost wouldn't find them before Danny could take care of it.

She bit her lip and hoped and prayed that Danny _could_ take care of it. But he had no back-up now.

Tucker was out of commission; his heart was beating erratically and he was really pale. _Really_ pale. As in _almost as pale as a ghost_ and that was really saying something coming from a member of Team Phantom. She was starting to get anxious because she hadn't been able to wake him up yet, no matter how hard she shook his shoulder.

And she couldn't just leave him to face an empty alley when he came to.

No; she had to stay.

But that meant that Danny only had a fried thermos somewhere on the ground and no other Fenton-made weapons to take on his opponent.

And that scared her.

She was scared for herself and scared for Tucker, but she was especially scared for Danny. She couldn't remember being this nervous about a ghost fight since Danny took his parent's half-finished suit to battle Pariah Dark.

This ghost was like nothing she had ever seen.

Big, black and dark purple, she had originally praised its choice of colors— very Goth, even if she did say so herself. But the moment it had started attacking, she knew things were very, very bad.

It dissolved out of its humanoid form into a thick sickly mist of the same colors. It spread out, growing bigger, but she hadn't been able to see through it. The edges began to wave as if they were the arms of an octopus.

It waved them toward Danny, and he backed up, crying out in pain even though he never came in contact with the ghost.

That wasn't good.

She looked at Tucker and they nodded, communicating without words.

He powered up the thermos and she yelled to get the thing's attention.

It worked.

A little too well.

Before she knew what had happened, the mist left Danny alone, and began to sink down toward them.

She had the presence of mind to blast it with whatever she was holding in her hand, but it didn't seem phased. Instead it came at them faster.

Tucker went down without a sound and she rushed over with a cry. Danny swooped in, trying to protect them, distract the monster. But, without even bothering to turn around, it hit him before he could get to them.

She cried out as he saw him roll backwards, grunting in pain, but he quickly rallied to make his next move. After throwing an ecto-blast, he put up a shield and told her to get Tucker out of there.

She didn't need to be told twice.

But she hated leaving him behind. She wanted to be there with him, to help, but she had to take care of Tucker. And if that ghost had downed Tucker that easily, she knew it could do it to her too. Danny wouldn't want her around. It would slow him down because he would be worrying.

But if it could do that to Tucker, what would it do to Danny? He was part human too. And his ghost half didn't seem to be doing so well when she saw him last…

She didn't want to think about it. She hoped he would pull through, just like he always had.

She closed her eyes and repeated over and over that he would be fine. He would be. He would be. He would be fine. Danny would be fine.

A loud popping noise back where she thought she had left Danny stirred her out of her thoughts. It was followed by a whoosh of air and a noticeable diminishing of the glowing green haze that had been in the sky.

Danny had let the shield drop. Or had been forced to. She hoped it was the former.

She wished he had a plan… that he knew what to do. She wanted to be there with him, help him out, but she couldn't leave Tucker defenseless. She hated feeling so helpless. There was nothing she could do.

But she could.

She had her phone on her— she could call for backup.


	3. Jack

Jack stiffened so quickly that he dropped the spare parts on the floor. He was pretty sure that he heard something. Somewhere. Close by. So he put down the ecto-gun he was adjusting, leaving his work station for the first time in hours.

He bounded up the stairs three at a time and stuck his head out into the kitchen.

"Ghosts? Did someone say ghosts?" he yelled.

He looked around, but the only entity nearby, living or dead, was his Jazz-erincess on the phone.

She covered the mouthpiece to guard the conversation from his intrusion and glared at him with one of _those_ looks.

Oh.

He shuffled around a bit; it always unnerved him to have his daughter think he was doing something wrong or totally embarrassing. He never would admit it, but he sometimes thought that she was even more intimidating than Maddie holding a Fenton Bazooka, which was saying something. He learned long ago that Jazz was always right and that he shouldn't try to argue with her. So his enthusiasm faltered as the silence grew longer.

He was in really big trouble with her this time, wasn't he?

But he couldn't even remember what he could have done wrong… He hadn't trashed the lab all week and hadn't tried to pull a ghost out of any family members lately and it wasn't like she should even care that fudge got in the ecto-filter. It never occurred to him that the problem was stomping up the stairs like an elephant when Jazz had whispered the _g-word_.

Her eyes never left his as she continued to silently listen to the person on the other end of the phone and her face became so stoic that he became nervous. Her face was pale as she flipped the phone shut without saying another word.

He was taxing his poor brain to the utmost. What could Jazz have heard on the phone that would make her shut up? Not that he ever got tired of her talking; it was actually kind of comforting to hear her voice babbling on about psycho-what-not that went over his head, but… it must have really been something to make her speechless. Then another thought struck him. If anyone dared to say anything to upset his daughter, they would have the Fenton Anti-Creep stick coming.

He called out to her softly, wondering if she was okay, wanting to find out what was wrong with his little girl. She was still staring at him with a far-away look on her face.

Then, she surprised him by suddenly becoming her normal talkative self again and saying that actually the phone call _was_ about ghosts. Not just that, but he needed to grab his equipment and pack up the GAV right away.

He brightened considerably. Time to go hunt some spooks! Maybe he would even get a chance at the ghost-boy this time…

Almost before he knew it, he had an armful of inventions stowed under his seat and he was revving the engine of their giant ghost-battling vehicle. Jazz climbed into the back and explained the situation to Maddie whom she had somehow managed to find in a matter of seconds. His wife rode shotgun and brandished one of the anti-ecto variety—man was that hot.

He didn't really hear any of the details, bit it didn't matter. All he needed to know was 'ghosts' and he was ready to go. Maddie would sift through all the information and explain everything that he needed to know later.

He was so excited that he was taking his family ghost-hunting and that Jazz had willingly come with him—instigated the hunt, even— that he was out of their driveway and speeding away before he even know in which direction they were supposed to be heading.

He turned on the ghost-detecting systems as he careened around a corner. Between it, the frantic commands of his wife and daughter, and his own infallible sense of direction, they had to get there sooner or later…


	4. Maddie

Maddie was sitting in the alleyway, Fenton Bazooka at the ready.

They had all arrived just a few minutes before, but were holding back, despite her husband's too-loud insistence on pummeling some ghost butt.

She wanted to know exactly what was going on before they ran into the fight.

_Know thy enemy_ and all that before blindly attacking.

Phantom, she knew. This other ghost, she didn't. She had never laid eyes on it before and no one else had either.

Jazz said neither she nor Sam nor Tucker knew the ghost. At first, Maddie waved it off, thinking that that did not mean much, but as she pondered the odd phrasing during the hectic drive, she wondered if they might know more about ghosts than they had ever let on before.

It would certainly explain some things…

She would have to do some sleuthing of her own… but after they took care of this.

Actually, there were several things that she needed to find out as soon as this was over. Certain things such as finding out exactly what was going on and how Sam and Tucker thought they were going to fend off a ghost by themselves and why her daughter had been their first point of emergency contact instead of her and Jack and where on earth Danny was in all of this…

That last thought was the most troublesome because he was always with Sam and Tucker, but had not been mentioned in the course of the entire trip. At the moment, however, what she really needed to do was push everything aside to focus on the fight at hand. Danny could take care of himself for a few minutes, surely.

From their position, they heard rather than watched the fight, only catching glimpses of stray green ectoblasts reaching far above the rooftops. Occasionally, a black-purple mist rose above the building, but it was so fuzzy that Maddie could not make much of it. Was it the ghost's method of attacking or the ghost itself? She didn't know. The ghost did not say anything either, so she could not identify its obsession or weaknesses from this little data. But there was no way to get closer without becoming exposed.

The whole thing was frustrating, to say the least.

The worrying part was that the most visual part of the fight seemed to be Phantom getting knocked all over the place by this strange specter. She knew how strong Phantom was, rating high on their charts and still growing every time they managed to get a reading of him.

So she couldn't imagine what on earth he was fighting.

Then, there was a loud scream accompanied by a black and white blur flying through the building to skid to a stop just across the street from them. He groaned loudly before slowly turning over and trying to clear his head.

Before Maddie could stop her, Jazz made a very loud 'psst' noise in his general direction until he turned their way.

Great. Now Phantom would come after them. Surely she had taught her daughter the ways of ghost-hunting better than that, but she did not have time to worry about that before Phantom moved.

All the same, she did not fire the weapon she had drawn as Jazz beckoned to the young ghost over to where they were hiding out.

He came at them, but his fists were not powered with energy and he was not flying madly bent on destruction; he hobbled over slowly with relief shining clearly on his face.

She was confused. Phantom had never come toward them voluntarily, and certainly not with such a show of goodwill. He always tried to shoot them or flew away from them, but there he was, just a few feet away now and not making any signs of hostility.

She did not even protest when he collapsed beside them, a giddy lopsided grin looking far too cheeky considering the physical condition he was in. He started whispering to Jazz, who shook her head and pointed behind them, the position they thought Sam and Tucker were according to their first message—they had not had time to reach them again.

It really threw her off that he was acting so… human.

And, wait just one second, there… Jazz was on speaking terms with public enemy number one? Her daughter Jazz? The psychiatrist in training? The one who refused to have anything to do with ghostly inventions at home and firmly believed that ghosts didn't even exist until the portal opened?

Oh, yet another mystery to solve once this was over. Yes, she was certainly going to have a talk with that young lady.

The young ghost nodded and got up, ready to make it back to his fight when Jazz put a comforting hand on his arm and wished him luck. Phantom smiled, thanked her, and looked Maddie in the eye as he told her and Jack not to get involved.

Not to get involved?

Just what did he think he was doing when he said something like that: 'you can't get involved'? He couldn't boss them around- Jack and Maddie Fenton, ghost hunters extraordinaire. He was only a ghost. And a teenage ghost at that.

And why shouldn't they get involved? Because he wanted all of the glory? So that was what he meant by all of his claims to be the hero… No wonder there was always so much collateral damage wherever he went.

As she thought back, however, that did not seem like the reason for the intense look on his face. He seemed dead serious about what he said, concerned almost. A new thought crossed her mind. Did he not want them getting involved because he thought that it was too dangerous? He had mentioned something of the kind before. She scoffed. They were professional ghost hunters. They should be able to handle a ghost better than some cocky teenager.

Then again, said teenager was a powerful ghost and seemed to be getting knocked around pretty heavily himself.

Still, he couldn't tell Maddie Fenton to stay away from a fight if she wanted in.

And boy did she want in.


	5. Tucker

Chicken drumsticks began to beat a tattoo.

His mouth watered as ribbons of bacon slithered above his head, tantalizingly just out of reach. He whimpered as every attempt to grab at them failed. But the last straw was the line of juicy red steaks floating, floating.

If he could only reach a little higher… he could… he could…

Wake up.

Tucker groaned when he realized that the gourmet meats dancing above his head had only been a dream. As the fog cleared a little from his mind, he realized that had meats been flying through the air above his head, it would have meant that the Lunch Lady was around and that would not have been a good thing. Not that it would have been a bad thing… But it would not have been a good thing.

There was a particular reason for that, he thought. Some reason that it would not be a piece of cake to take care of the Lunch Lady right now. Something… that probably had to do with why he was currently sitting in the back of an alley somewhere in Amity Park.

He did a double take.

Why _was_ he sitting in an alley somewhere in Amity Park?

He sat up to get a better view of the situation but as soon as he had sat up, the pain coursing along his body made him double over as he began groaning for all he was worth.

Sam was suddenly at his side with a frantic, "Tucker! Are you okay?"

He clutched his head and his chest as he looked at her in confusion. "What… what happened?"

She looked at him, her forehead creased with worry.

"You… you don't remember?"

He shook his head.

"We were out on patrol and there was a new ghost. Black and purple. Ring any bells?"

He tried to think back, but couldn't for the life of him remember a new black and purple ghost.

The Lunch Lady? Yes. (Hello? meat!).

Technus? Yes. (Are you kidding me? You really think that I could forget about the master of technology?)

New spooky ooky? No. Yeah, no. There was nothing there.

"No? Nothing? Well, we were taking care of it… or trying to, anyway, but it is really weird and doesn't seem to have any obsessions and has attacks that I've never seen before."

"Attacks… that you've never seen before? What… what do you mean?"

"I mean that it wasn't using any real world items drawn by its obsessions to attack and it wasn't using blasts or rays, but it didn't even have to come in contact with people to hurt them. I mean he did _that_ to you…" she pointed at him and he looked down to realize for the first time that his mustard shirt was burned away to leave a nasty gash across his chest.

For the life of him, Tucker couldn't get the words "burnt hotdog" out of his head. No wonder it hurt so much…

"It did that to you without even touching you. I didn't even see it doing anything. One minute you were holding a thermos and the next you were down on the ground." She stopped and looked at him concerned. "Do you remember anything about any of that?"

He scrunched his face up, trying to recreate the scene in his mind, but he drew a blank. He remembered school and the Nasty Burger afterward. He even remembered being the one put in charge of the thermos during patrol, but after that… he didn't remember the fight or their opponent.

He shook his head.

"Are you sure that you're okay?" Sam leaned back a bit and began to chew on a nail, something Tucker hadn't seen her do since third grade.

"I'll be fine," he assured her.

"I didn't have any hands to carry the first aid kit; I was only just able to get you out of there. You weigh a lot, by the way. I think you've been eating too much meat and playing too many games on your PDA and not training enough, you know that?"

Tucker laughed. Despite the pain and the circumstances, he found a rambling and nervous Sam trying to cheer him up just what the doctor ordered.

"Thanks, Sam."

She smiled tightly. "No problem."

"But, we should get going…" Tucker tried to stand up, but grimaced as he flexed the injured muscles.

Sam immediately stopped him. "Hey, just where do you think you are going?"

"We gotta go help Danny."

"No." She sat him back down.

"Why not?"

She looked at him a little incredulously. "What, you mean aside from the fact that you are in no condition to be moving, let alone helping?"

He glared a little. "Yeah. If this ghost is as bad as you say it is, Danny's going to need all the help he can get. We don't even leave him alone with Ember."

"Yeah, well, it's because this ghost is so bad that we have to stay put."

"What are you talking about? That makes no sense. We have to go…"

He tried to get up again but did not get far before Sam pushed him back down.

"Gah! Why do you have to be so pig-headed? You are not going anywhere. You cannot help. I can't even help. Look at how easily you went down; the thing didn't even have to touch you to put you out of commission! If we went back, we couldn't even do anything and Danny would just be worried about us. He told me to take you and get out and stay out and for once… for once, I agree with him."

She bit her lip. Tucker understood both the reasoning and just how hard it was for Sam to admit that they couldn't do anything.

"Hey," he tried to comfort her, "it will be okay."

She nodded, but the look she cast back over her shoulder told a different story. She took in a deep shaky breath. "I'm going to try and call the Fentons again…"

She was looking for her cell phone before Tucker could say anything in reply. As she began to type in the number, Tucker called her from her task with an oddly tremoring whisper.

She turned around at once, wondering what was the matter, to see a pale Tucker fixating on the air behind her.

"Saaaam…" he breathed.

"Yeah, Tuck?"

"Black and purple, you said?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"I think I found him."

"What's he doing?" she whispered. She didn't want to turn around.

"I think he's looking." He motioned for her to join him beside the dumpster where there was a little more cover.

"For what?" She sat down beside him, closing her eyes and clenching her jaw so she wouldn't betray how nervous she felt.

"I don't know…"

He put his arms around her, drawing her close as if to reassure her that it would all be alright even though he felt the same. He swallowed thickly as he saw the dark cloud lock onto their position and hover closer.

"But I have a bad feeling it's looking for us…"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dreaming of raw meat is a precursor to death in many old traditions


	6. Jazz

Jazz sat with her parents as they sat hiding in a side street, armed to the teeth, but out of the action. She was biting her fingernails, one of those pesky habits that kept on cropping up when she was especially nervous. Danny would come through, of course he would. He always did.

But she was worried all the same; she couldn't help it. She accidentally yipped when she was startled by Danny's pained yell coming out of the blue, but quickly covered her mouth. She hoped he was okay.

She began to realize that he might not be when she didn't hear his voice carry across the blocks with a witty remark as he came back to face his foe. She didn't hear the hits of ectoblasts that had missed their target. There were no sounds of fighting. When she tried to edge out of the alley to look out across the city in case the fight was silent but visible, her mother pushed her back with an authoritative hand and would not listen to anything she had to say for the next minute or so.

By then, Jazz was sure that something was different. She still couldn't hear any evidence of a fight. She had to see what was going on for herself.

Edging a nose out around her mother's shoulder, she saw the sickly mist begin to rise then condense into a human-looking body above the business offices of downtown Amity Park. It made no noise at it turned its head. It was looking for something, shooting away in one direction, then another, trying to find whatever it was it was looking for.

She realized, then, that it was looking for Danny. He had disappeared after that last attack and scream over a minute ago. She hoped it wouldn't find him… not until he was ready for it again.

Then, a movement caught her eye on the other side of the street. It was her brother.

He regained visibility and tangibility as he flew backwards through the last building behind her and hit the pavement with a groan he was desperately trying to silence.

She couldn't help it—"Danny!"

Oops. She had forgotten that her parents were there… "I mean... Danny Phantom!" That would have to do.

She ran over to her brother, now collapsed against the concrete of the road. She gingerly cradled him despite her parent's frantic protests. They began to die down when they got their first real look at him; they had never seen the young ghost so beat up before. What on earth was he fighting against?

He was breathing hard and his body dripped with green ectoplasm from countless cuts and scrapes. He collapsed as soon as Jazz let him go, unable to get up as he tried to support himself on his arms and knees.

She caught him again and lowered him slowly to the ground where he curled up, coughing harshly. He looked like he had been to hell and back, but his condition was the last thing on his mind.

"How are Sam and Tucker?"

She didn't answer right away because she didn't know for sure. Sam hadn't picked up when she called and they had yet to meet up. But she needed to say something. A white lie for now.

"They're fine." He sighed in relief. "How are you?"

He looked at her with the beginnings of fear in big green eyes that were glassy with tears.

"I'm actually not doing real well…"

Jazz's hand touched something wet and she looked down to see the ectoplasm began to turn red and pool beneath him. He couldn't stop it. He couldn't hold on any longer.

She gasped. No, this couldn't be happening. He needed to rally. They needed Danny to get back up and fight. She needed him to be okay.

She became more frantic when she saw the ghost floating in the air just a few blocks away. It had seen them and was moving toward them. Her older-sister side suddenly came out full-force. She needed to protect him from whatever this thing was.

He saw it coming, but couldn't get up. He had lost too much blood, been thrown too many times. A tear trickled out of the corner of her eye when he realized that there was nothing more he could physically do to protect anyone.

Jazz looked down at him wishing that she could help, either transferring her energy, or blasting the crazy ghost that dared to beat up her little brother. But she couldn't. The only thing she had ever been able to do was to come up with silly names for ghosts that the group already knew and trap Danny in the thermos.

She could do nothing to stop the dark ghost from slowly hovering closer toward them.

She couldn't keep Danny's dimmed green eyes from fluttering closed, no matter how many times she shook his shoulders. She couldn't stop the rings of light that transformed him back into black-haired Fenton, the son of the two hunters sitting right beside her.

She ignored their gasps of disbelief.

Her tears were falling freely onto his face. He didn't have the strength to wipe them away.

She hugged him closer, whispering small useless comforts in his ear, trying to assure him that everything would be alright, that she would protect him. Her words were quickly swallowed up by her sobs, which only intensified as he spoke, in barely a whisper, with his last breath,

"I'm so sorry, Jazz..."


End file.
